This has definitely been the biggest, and probably the most important, lesson learned from my junior year of high school. 

It applies to almost anything, from completing schoolwork to my blog, as well; I’ll use both these contexts to elaborate on this lesson further. For example, is it more valuable to have multiple (and maybe even unpolished) blog posts with some valuable ideas in each or ONE long, extremely well written blog post with fantastic ideas at every sentence? The ideal situation would be to have both scenarios combined into one, so having multiple, “near perfect” posts. And with experience and improvement, approaching this state is possible.  

But for just getting started with a blog (or any venture) and continuing to grow it, a choice has to be made: consistent but somewhat imperfect posts, or rare but perfect posts? Believe it or not, I think the first option can yield better results. Quality is more valuable than quantity, but only to some extent (and vice versa). Through creating more written pieces, we undergo the writing process of brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing & publishing more times; through this we develop experience and a niche process that applies to us. Each time we repeat and refine this process, the final output content becomes better. On the other hand, by waiting and striving for that “perfect moment” or “perfect post” to manifest, we’re hindering the development of that creative process. The process, which has potential to improve over time, is more sustainable than the “perfection” approach. 

I’m being completely honest: I initially went with the “perfection” approach when developing my blog, and still become entranced in it when it comes to uploading posts (a reason why I have a difficult time uploading to social media). Initially, I did not have a fully complete vision for my blog – preventing me from even uploading the pre-written posts and ideas I had. Likewise, I’m always worried about not using the “perfect” phrasing or sounding terrible, that I keep on refining the same post over and over – preventing me from developing a sustainable process. 

However, what helped me realize the danger of favoring perfection over consistency was schoolwork. Junior year of high school is known to be the most rigorous year of high school for students, not only because it is the last full year of schooling before college applications, but also because it’s when a lot of students become eligible to take a variety of challenging/advanced placement courses. And with that comes more work, and more notetaking. I’ve always been one to try and have aesthetic or “perfectly organized” notes; hence I tend to dread the process of taking notes for my classes. Yet, throughout junior year, I drifted away from this approach; instead of striving to perfectly organize all my information at once and spend hours doing it, I strived to write and get all my thoughts and ideas out at once. I trusted the process and let the pieces fall together; flipping through my chemistry notebook, my initial class notes were pretty sloppy and unorganized, though there was some good information there. As time progressed, my notes and information became more organized – just by repeating the process over and over again while making changes along the way. 

By choosing consistency, we commit to figuring things out as we proceed. And eventually, we’ll discover that we improved more than what we initially considered to be possible… 
Therefore, consistency > perfection. Always.